Profile by D. Keirsey
INFJs focus on possibilities, think in terms of values and come easily to decisions. The small number of this type (about 1 percent of the general population) is regrettable, since INFJs have unusually strong drive to contribute to the welfare of others and they genuinely enjoy helping others. This type has great depth of personality; they are themselves complicated and can understand and deal with complex issues and people.
INFJs tend to be private people and they can be hard to get to know. They have an unusually rich inner life, but they are reserved and tend not to share their reactions except with those they trust. People who have known an INFJ for years may find sides emerging that come as a surprise. Not that INFJs are inconsistent--they are very consistent and value integrity. INFJs are usually good students, achievers who exhibit an unostentacious creativity. They take their work seriously and enjoy academic activity. They can exhibit qualities of perfectionism and put more into a task than perhaps is justified by the nature of the task. They generally will not be visible leaders, but will quietly exert influence behind the scenes. INFJs tend to contribute their own best efforts in all situations. They find unnecessary conflict destructive and tend to be good mediators. Children of INFJs often remember their parents fondly as being warm, patient, and inspirational.
INFJs have vivid imaginations exercised both as memory and intuition, and this can amount to genius, resulting at times in an INFJ being seen as mystical. This unfettered imagination often will enable this person to compose complex and often aesthetic works of art such as music, mathematical systems, poems, plays, and novels. In a sense, the INFJ is the most poetic of all the types. Just as the ENTJ must lead, so must an INFJ intuit; this capability extends to people, things, and often events, taking the form of visions, episodes of foreknowledge, premonitions, auditory and visual images of things to come. INFJs can have uncanny communications with certain individuals at a distance. It is an INFJ who is likely to have visions of human events past, present, or future. If a person demonstrates an ability to understand psychic phenomena better than most, this person is apt to be an INFJ. Characteristically, INFJs have strong empathic abilities and can be aware of another's emotions or intents even before that person is conscious of these. This can take the form of feeling the distress or illnesses of others to an extent which is difficult for other types. INFJs can intuit good and evil in others, although they seldom can tell how they came to know. Subsequent events tend to bear them out, however.
INFJs often select liberal arts as a college major and opt for occupations which involve interacting with people, but on a one-to-one basis. For example, the general practitioner in medicine might be an INFJ, or the psychiatrist or psychologist. As with all NF's, the ministry holds attraction, although the INFJ must develop an extraverted role here which requires a great deal of energy. INFJs may be attracted to writing as a profession, and often they use language which contains an unusual degree of imagery. They are masters of the metaphor, and both their verbal and written communications tend to be elegant and complex. Their great talent for language usually is directed toward people, describing people and writing to communicate with people in a personalized way. INFJs who write comment often that they write with a particular person in mind; writing to a faceless, abstract audience leaves them uninspired.
INFJs make outstanding individual therapists who have the ability to get in touch with the archetypes of their patients in a way some other types do not. As therapists, INFJs may choose counseling, clinical psychology, or psychiatry, or may choose to teach in these fields. Writing about these professions often intrigues an INFJ. Whatever their choice, they generally are successful in these fields because their great personal warmth, their enthusiasm, their insight, their depth of concentrations, their originality, and their organizational skills can all be brought into play.
At work as well as socially, INFJs are highly sensitive in their handling of others and tend to work well in an organizational structure. They have a capacity for working at jobs which require solitude and concentration, but also do well when in contact with people, providing the human interaction is not superficial. INFJs enjoy problem-solving and can understand and use human systems creatively and humanistically. As employees or employers, INFJs are concerned with people's feelings and are able to provide in themselves a barometer of the feelings of individuals and groups within the organizations. INFJs listen well and are willing and able to consult and cooperate with others. Once a decision is made, they work to implement it.
INFJs are generally good at public relations and themselves have good interpersonal relations. They value staff harmony and want an organization to run smoothly and pleasantly, themselves making every effort to contribute to that end.
Profile by
M.M. Heiss INFJs are distinguished by both their complexity of
character
and the unusual range and depth of their talents. Strongly
humanitarian in outlook, INFJs tend to be idealists, and because
of their J preference for closure and completion, they are
generally "doers" as well as dreamers. This rare combination of
vision and practicality often results in INFJs taking a
disproportionate amount of responsibility in the various causes
to which so many of them seem to be drawn. INFJs are deeply concerned about their relations with
individuals
as well as the state of humanity at large. They are, in fact,
sometimes mistaken for extroverts because they appear so outgoing
and are so genuinely interested in people -- a product of the
Feeling function they most readily show to the world. On the
contrary, INFJs are true introverts, who can only be emotionally
intimate and fulfilled with a chosen few from among their long-
term friends and family. While
instinctively courting the personal and organizational demands
continually made upon them by others, at intervals INFJs will
suddenly withdraw into themselves, sometimes shutting out even
their intimates. This apparent paradox is a necessary escape
valve for them, providing both time to rebuild their depleted
resources and a filter to prevent the emotional overload to which
they are so susceptible as inherent "givers". As a pattern of
behavior, it is perhaps the most confusing aspect of the
enigmatic INFJ character to outsiders, and hence the most often
misunderstood -- particularly by those who have little experience
with this rare type. Due in part to the unique perspective produced by this
alternation between detachment and involvement in the lives of
the people around them, INFJs may well have the clearest insights
of all the types into the motivations of others, for good and for
evil. The most important contributing factor to this uncanny
gift, however, are the empathic abilities often found in Fs,
which seem to be especially heightened in the INFJ type (possibly
by the dominance of the introverted N function). This empathy can serve as a classic example of the
two-edged
nature of certain INFJ talents, as it can be strong enough to
cause discomfort or pain in negative or stressful situations.
More explicit inner conflicts are also not uncommon in INFJs; it
is possible to speculate that the causes for some of these may
lie in the specific combinations of preferences which define this
complex type. For instance, there can sometimes be a "tug-of-
war" between NF vision and idealism and the J practicality that
urges compromise for the sake of achieving the highest priority
goals. And the I and J combination, while perhaps enhancing
self-awareness, may make it difficult for INFJs to articulate
their deepest and most convoluted feelings. Usually self-expression comes more easily to INFJs on
paper, as
they tend to have strong writing skills. Since in addition they
often possess a strong personal charisma, INFJs are generally
well-suited to the "inspirational" professions such as teaching
(especially in higher education) and religious leadership.
Psychology and counseling are other obvious choices, but overall,
INFJs can be exceptionally difficult to pigeonhole by their
career paths. Perhaps the best example of this occurs in the
technical fields. The minority of INFJs who pursue studies
and careers in the sciences tend to be as successful as their
T counterparts, as it is *iNtuition* -- the dominant function for
the INFJ type -- which governs the ability to understand abstract
theory and implement it creatively. In their own way, INFJs are just as much "systems
builders" as
are INTJs; the difference lies in that most INFJ "systems" are
founded on human beings and human values, rather than information
and technology. Their systems may for these reasons be
conceptually "blurrier" than analogous NT ones, harder to measure
in strict numerical terms, and easier to take for granted -- yet
it is these same underlying reasons which make the resulting
contributions to society so vital and profound. Mohandas Gandhi and
Eleanor
Roosevelt are examples of the Counselor Idealist (INFJ).
Introverted iNtuiting Feeling Judging
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